Salvation, one person helping another

Danger of flood waters is but a neighborhood or two away right here in southwest Florida, thanks to a heavy, persistent rain that was forecast, but its potential for real trouble was lost in our general apathy and the threat of disasters further afield begging attention.

We thought the weather would be simply an inconvenience, but it turned into lost homes, lost businesses, people in need of rescue, streets and roads under water, closed schools as the learning season was getting underway, and fear of more troubles —- waters that may rise again in an area of inadequate control systems and the emergence into our space of venomous snakes and pestilence.

All this in an era and area of too many neighborhood killings over drugs and lost loves, too much hunger, too much homelessness, too many racial tensions, a product of our heritage, and, tragically, mediocrity in too many governmental and civic institutions — schools, hospitals, police and fire protection, aid and hope for the poor, the elderly and the children, oh, yes, the ever lovable, but forever vulnerable children.

Plus, our thoughts and fears are drawn further afield, to riots over ideologies and, nominally, statues in the south, the greatest threat of nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis more than a half century ago and flood waters approaching Biblical proportions across our Gulf in Texas.

Bad stuff.

Let’s form a committee, we say. Let’s study the issues. Let’s begin assigning blame. Let’s tax ourselves more so we can begin “programs.”

Let’s not. Let’s look at what works.

Two things stand out. One is the outpouring of human compassion, bravery, sacrifice and the epitome of caring in Houston, where people, just people, not ordinary people, but all kinds of people, took to the flooded streets to save lives, provide food, shelter, hope, comfort and a loving touch to those in distress.

It is a human condition that surfaces in times of great suffering and it is the best of us. It is what we were intended to be. We can thank our maker for building that into our DNA.

A TV news interview during the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, provided the second sign of hope. The man being interviewed was a former white supremacist filled with racial hatred.

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Florida Voices tells the stories of everyday Floridians, examining what issues matter most to them in the Sunshine State.